Impacts of Landscapes on Water Quality in A Typical Headwater Catchment, Southeastern China

Abstract

The relationship between land landscape and water quality has been a hot topic, especially for researchers in headwater catchment, because of drinking water safety and ecological protection. In this study, Lita Watershed, a typical headwater catchment of Southeast China, was selected as the study area. During 2015 and 2016, water samples were collected from 18 sampling points every month, and 19 water quality parameters were tested such as nutrients and heavy metals. Through multistatistics analysis, the results show that the most sensitive water quality parameters are Cr, NO3, NO2, and COD. The type and scale of water body have direct effects on water quality, while the land-use patterns in the surrounding areas have an indirect impact on the concentration and migration of pollutants. This effect is sensitive to seasonal change because heavy metals are mainly from atmospheric deposition, but nutrients are mainly from agricultural nonpoint source pollution. According to the results, increasing the proportion of forest land and paddy field is effective to the reduction of water nutrients. Besides, balancing the configuration of water bodies, especially increasing the capacity of the pond, can significantly alleviate the water pollution in the dry season. This study is useful to provide policy suggestion for refined watershed management and water source planning basing on seasons and pollution sources.

Response of Water Quality to Landscape Patterns in an Urbanized Watershed in Hangzhou, China

“…For example, we found that the connectedness of the industrial land, dominances and fragmentations of the road and urban greenspace, and the fragmentation of the under construction land were correlated with the concentrations of TN and TP in the stream water. By identifying the influential land uses and the corresponding landscape pattern metrics, it might be possible to artificially influence water quality by optimizing the composition and spatial pattern of the specific land uses [79,80].…”

Are the Water Quality Improvement Measures of China’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project Effective? A Case Study of Xuzhou Section in the East Route

“…Several research groups studied the relationships between several influencing factors and water quality. Zhao et al [ 18 ] analyzed the impact of landscapes on water quality in a typical headwater catchment of Southeast China by using canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and found that land use patterns in the surrounding areas had an indirect impact on the concentration and migration of pollutants. Scheili et al [ 19 ] studied the impact of climate factors on water quality by using regression analysis.…”